Principles for Future Action

Fifty people from social movements and organizations that work on food production and food sovereignty issues gathered on Monday 5, August for the Assembly of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty of Latin America and the Caribbean held in Bogota, Colombia.

The meeting first did a historical overview of the eleven years of building this convergence tool for organizations all over the continent. They later discussed their charter that includes definitions and principles that were ratified on Tuesday, at the end of the Assembly.

“Throughout the decade of 2000 social movements and organizations in the region have promoted and defended food sovereignty to strengthen alliances and come up with proposals”, reads the document submitted by the organizing committee that has worked temporarily in the lead-up to the meeting. The document also defines the alliance as a “social and political “ group made up of regional and subregional networks of social movements and organizations that are leaders in appropriating and promoting the concept of food sovereignty both with governments and at multilateral meetings, such as the Committee on World Food Security and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The representatives participating in the different working groups talked about the concept of food sovereignty and its components such as the defense of territories, the expansion of agroecology as a food production method to produce healthy and equitable food, by protecting biodiversity through peasant seeds.

They also talked about an action plan for the next three years based on those principles that will include resisting agrotoxics and transnational corporation linked with industrial.

Outside Bogota, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty aims to become an open continental platform that will gather and promote the struggle for food sovereignty in the region.